An Art Show for Pussy Riot

By MELENA RYZIK

The Russian performance artists and punk activists known as Pussy Riot, three of whom were sentenced to prison in Moscow this month, continue to garner international support, most recently from the art world. On Sept. 10, the group will be the subject of a pop-up exhibition and fundraiser at Lombard-Freid Projects, a Chelsea gallery. The event is to be organized by Victoria Dushkina, a curator from Moscow, and Amnesty International, which has supported the cause of Pussy Riot for months.

“We consider Pussy Riot prisoners of conscience and continue calling for their immediate and unconditional release,” Ilona Kelly, interim director of the individuals-at-risk program at Amnesty International USA, told Bloomberg News.

Lea Fried, a partner in Lombard-Freid, added: “This is not about raising awareness or protesting anymore. This is about raising money for the women, their families and defense.”

On August 17, N adezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alekhina, 24, and Ekaterina Samutsevich, 30, were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for performing a profane, 40-second-long “punk prayer” in an Orthodox cathedral; they were sentenced to two years each in prison. Their case drew widespread global protests and words of support from Madonna and Paul McCartney.

Ms. Dushkina, a curator at the Gary Tatintsian gallery in Moscow, said she was organizing the exhibit independently, in solidaritywith Pussy Riot. “I share their spirit of opposition,” she told Bloomberg. “I feel like I could have participated in one of their performances. I could have been in their place.”

The show will include five looped video pieces featuring Pussy Riot members sloganeering, over a crunching guitar soundtrack.

“I'd like to create the atmosphere of absurdity and hysteria that characterized the Pussy Riot trial,” Ms. Dushkina said.

Since the trial, several re maining members of Pussy Riot may have fled Russia, according to a recent posting on their Twitter feed. On Monday, a lawyer for the three convicted women filed an appeal in Moscow.